Wednesday, August 6, 2014

REPORT: Werner A Finalist For MLB Commish

Werner And Roseanne

Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner brought you The Cosby Show, Roseanne, 3rd Rock from the Sun and That 70s Show. Unfortunately, he also brought you Bosom Buddies—which, aside from launching the career of Tom Hanks, was about as bad as TV gets. Now, USAToday reports that Werner is a finalist (along with Rob Manfred, MLB's chief operating officer and Tim Brosnan, MLB's executive vice president of business) for being named the new Commissioner of Baseball. The real question is: will a Werner regime be more 'Cosby'-like or 'Bosom Buddies'-like? Werner is 64 years old (trust us, this is not a disqualification for a few of us here at FN) at a time when baseball is facing a real challenge in figuring out how to re-capture a lost generation of younger fans. Would Werner be a SeligClone—willing to accept the billions in TV and ad money while watching the game corrode? Or would he be a visionary—as he was in Hollywood—and make over the game for the 21st century? The problem is, we have no baseball track record—he is an enigma. No one has a clue what he actually does on a daily basis for the Red Sox. If he does get the MLB gig, we have to hope—at the very least—that Roseanne never sings another anthem.

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